


Many Journeys

by cynassa



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 09:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21444163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynassa/pseuds/cynassa
Summary: Bilbo Baggins is looking forward to a good meal at his own table and a nap in his own bed. Unfortunately, it seems this is not to be. Or, the tale of the return of Fidrin and Kudrin and how Bilbo met an exiled Thorin and thought him a most dubious fellow until he caughtfeelings, and some politics that almost aren't important at all.It gives great credit to the tables of the Old Took to say that when Bilbo reached his home he paused only to put his bags away before trotting off to the back gate which led to his garden, not even taking a little ‘nibble.’ So his butterscotch biscuits were spared from becoming so much fertiliser when he turned into the nook where he had carefully covered his prized tomatoes to spare them from any early frost, and found a child nesting there.“Well!” he said, “Well.” He trotted forward, intending to pinch its ears and take it to its parents, but as it happened, the child woke up at that moment, looked at him and jumped up.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	Many Journeys

It was not quite the end of autumn, but the breeze had gotten nippy, and the last of the late autumn blooms were falling when Bilbo Baggins of Bag End left his mother’s father’s smial in Tuckborough and made his way home. It had been a pleasant visit, with many old family recipes being brought out to the table in honour of his cousin’s engagement, but he was eager to see his tomatoes and nap where he could put up his toes some place naughty fauntlings wouldn’t try to tug the curls on them. He had been dropped off by his cousin’s hired carriage near the end of Hobbiton, but it had still been a fair walk to his own hole.

It gives great credit to the tables of the Old Took to say that when Bilbo reached his home he paused only to put his bags away before trotting off to the back gate which led to his garden, not even taking a little ‘nibble.’ So his butterscotch biscuits were spared from becoming so much fertiliser when he turned into the nook where he had carefully covered his prized tomatoes to spare them from any early frost, and found a child nesting there.

“Well!” he said, “_Well._” He trotted forward, intending to pinch its ears and take it to its parents, but as it happened, the child woke up at that moment, looked at him and jumped up. She was in quite a dreadful state, fine clothes ripped, face covered in dirt and long hair trailing a tomato vine. Bilbo puffed up with this reminder of the vandalism his tomatoes had faced but was distracted by yet another child popping up between the first one’s feet.

The first one stammered, “I am, I am Fidrin, at your service,” she said, executing a rather neat bow, and the little one chimed in, “Fidrin, service,” yawned, and nearly fell over onto its face, trying to copy the bow, caught at the last moment by the back of its shirt by its sister.

“No, rockhead,” the older one said, with a sigh and told him, “he is Kudrin.”

Bilbo’s always lively sense of humour was caught and once his anger was gone, he was quite incapable of holding onto grudges.

“Bilbo Baggins, at yours and your family’s,” he responded, and bowed. “I don’t suppose you’ve had breakfast, and my second breakfast is awaiting me, so I do hope you’ll join me for a bite and I can walk you to your family after.”

“Breakfast,” the younger one said agreeably and started off towards Bilbo, prevented by his sister’s firm grip on his shirt. The older one hesitated a little, as well she might, on troubling a stranger so dreadfully, but Bilbo smiled kindly at her and she gave another little bow and said, fervently, “Thank you, Mister Bilbo.”

Having brought them inside, however, he was firm that they should both have a bath while he looked at what he might have in his larder or could put together after a week spent away. His upholstery would never recover from them otherwise. Kudrin made a half-hearted protest but Bilbo gave them each a biscuit (and took one for himself) while the water heated in the big kettle, and Kudrin was dozing when Fidrin tiredly carried him off to the tub that Bilbo had had put in on his birthday four years ago when he had come of age, and was rather proud of.

He was Baggins enough that he could not allow even two naughty children to come to his house and feed them only bread, cheese and ham, so he hurried out to beg a few eggs and some milk from the Bracegirdles next door. Thankfully, only little Cillia was home so he did not have to chat, beyond promising her a little blueberry pie all to herself if she would pick the last of his blueberries. She was a good child and would not eat too many of them while picking, while her older brothers would probably denude his branches.

It was only when he was putting the two cakes in the oven that he said aloud to himself, “Goodness gracious, they will need clothes.” He certainly had nothing suitable for Kudrin, and if he gave Fidrin his own old clothes he could see how dubiously any matron would take it, seeing their young girl in trousers and a waistcoat. He cheered himself with the thought that Fidrin had been wearing practically that, so perhaps her mother was used to it. “And in any case, Madam,” he told the imaginary mother, “if you _will_ allow your children to roll around in other people’s tomatoes, then you cannot expect to have clothing prepared for them too.” Thus, having settled the matter to his own satisfaction, if not perhaps the imaginary matron’s, he kept some of his own old clothes in the dressing room beyond the bath and turned back to the all-important matter of second breakfast.

About an hour or so later, Bilbo raised his eyebrows in astonishment behind his cup of tea. Despite having just been in a smial full of faunts, he had not particularly noticed what they ate. The two children (for they were not faunts, of course, with _boots_ and the jewels studded in Fidrin’s pierced round ears) had neatly polished off half a smoked ham, most of a fresh wheel of cheese, all three of his loaves and then the two tea cakes. They had excellent manners for their age, even little Kudrin, and had eaten politely but steadily until even an ant would despair of finding enough left on their plates for its day’s needs. Now Kudrin was nodding off again into his milk and Fidrin looked as tired, if more determined to stay awake.

“Thank you, Mister Bilbo, we must take our leave but our mother will be very grateful, and we will pay our debt.” The odd words were said earnestly enough that Bilbo took another hasty sip of tea and smothered his instinctive smile before responding.

“There is no debt for breakfast. Where did you come from? I’ll send word to your mother so she doesn’t worry, and you and your brother can have a nap. I’ll take you to her right after.”

“You can’t!” Fidrin’s sudden sharp cry startled him and he spilled his tea on his trousers.

He huffed as he patted at the stain, “Now, my dear, I understand that you might be in trouble for running away, but really, we can’t let your mother keep worrying, can we?”

“We didn’t run away!” Fidrin sounded indignant. “And of course we will not keep mother worrying. We will go at once.” Her voice trembled a little for the first time, and Bilbo was astonished to find that she seemed frightened under her brave face.

Bilbo made a soothing noise and thought hastily, “No, no, of course you did not. But still, you cannot leave yet you know. It is not polite.”

This seemed to take her aback. “Is it not?”

Bilbo shook his head, “Why, you have come visiting and not stayed even half a day. It’s terrible manners.”

Fidrin thought about this. Her desire to be polite and her desire to start off for home immediately clearly struggled. Bilbo said, “You cannot wake Kudrin now, you know. The poor fellow is in no state to go walking.” Indeed, Kudrin was snoring away, sounding like a badly whittled whistle.

He got them bundled off to his least dusty guest room with reassurances that he would wake them up as soon as possible, and came back and had another slice of ham with what was left of the bread. After a while he nodded to himself and wrote a little note to Fidrin assuring her that he would be back promptly and left it pinned to a cushion on their bed and then put on some market clothes. 

He got all of the gossip he wanted soon enough, exchanging politenesses with the shopkeepers and taking care to run across Viola Banks, the midwife’s eldest, who had all the gossip there was to have from here until Bywater, and would give it freely. He would be lucky not to become gossip himself, as he had bought enough food for himself and the children for a week, and that had more than doubled his usual purchases and he had been forced to smile and disclaim everyone’s certainty that he was planning a party. The news worried him. Certainly there had been no strangers in Hobbiton recently, or anywhere closer than Bree, except for some dreadful skirmish amongst Big People just outside Hobbiton proper. Actually a fight or something, the grocer had said, and Viola Banks had added that they were thieves, and had been taken off to be locked away in the Big People’s jail. It was not likely that Fidrin and Kudrin had made their own way to Hobbiton from Bree, not even the most adventuresome child was likely to run away from their parents for so long, surely. And Bilbo did not believe that they were the children of any ruffians. He could not imagine where they could have come from.

“Bebother it all,” he said aloud, as he approached his own front gate and remembered that he must replant his tomato vines too. So much so for his plans of napping.

When the children woke, Bilbo had already decided that the tomatoes were beyond saving, and it was too late in the year to try for a new crop. He had plucked whatever tomatoes had survived the children and had put them in the cellar with his ripe apples to ripen.

He was putting together another cake, rather more elaborate, while the dough for the Baggins Bread rose under a teacloth, and the blueberries soaked in a vinegar-water bath when Fidrin found him. She was blinking up at him, and then unexpectedly she said, “Is this the cake with the brown little fruits?”

Bilbo thought a moment, and then took out a few raisins from his dried fruit cupboard to show Fidrin, “These? These are raisins,” he said at her nod. “No, the cake doesn’t have raisins in it. It does have other fruit.”

Raisins, she mouthed, as if she’d not heard the word before. They both startled as Kudrin cried out from somewhere in the smial and then Fidrin fled without a backwards glance. Bilbo followed more slowly, wiping his hands off first. When he reached the guest room, Kudrin was clinging to Fidrin with a hand fisting her hair, and she was holding him just as tight despite the wince on her face, and murmuring soothingly. Fidrin looked fairly near tears herself.

Bilbo only knew two ways of settling crying young ones. Or three, but clearly returning them to their parents would not be as easily accomplished as he had hoped; and he had no more cakes so he said, “Good evening Kudrin, would you like to hear a story?”

He didn’t answer, but did stop crying, blinking up at him, so Bilbo carried on, “Stop me if you’ve heard this story before,” purely as a matter of form, for it was famously difficult to stop him once he had begun a story, “there was once a little prince called Kudrin, and his older sister was called Fidrin, and they were quite the happiest pair of siblings East of the Sea. But one day a most terrible calamity struck them… a troll came to the kingdom.””

Fidrin clutched her brother closer, as if seeing the troll at the door of Bag End.

“Dragon.”

This most unexpected addition from Kudrin paused Bilbo but he went on agreeably, “a troll and a dragon came to the kingdom.” On and on he went, describing the horde of the troll and the trickery of the siblings who did many brave, daunting, and silly things (Prince Kudrin a foolish fellow indeed, if additions from Fidrin were to be believed) and then rescued their kingdom and the king and queen and had three types of cake and trifle for dinner that night as a suitable reward.

When he had finished telling the tale, Kudrin was already dozing. Fidrin seemed to be uneasy but followed him as he went out. When he had put the cake in the oven he had decided that if she were going to follow him around, she may as well be put to use and took her out into the garden to help him. She seemed to have not the least idea of what a plant was, or how they grew, but she was willing enough to help, although a twitch of her mouth that she couldn’t hide told him that she felt it was foolishness.

He was happily immersed in trimming his trees and bushes when Kudrin came out. He smiled beatifically, settled on a flattish rock near his sister and began to sun himself. It was at least half an hour later that the silence was disturbed.

“And the red ones? Where are they?” Fidrin asked.

Bilbo finished pruning the bush and then turned. Fidrin had neatly completed weeding the herb beds, which was impressive for a child who had not known a weed from rosemary. “They are quite ruined so I have plucked the ones that can be saved and will mulch the rest.” Some reproach had clearly come out in his voice as both their faces fell. “Oh, never mind, look at me fussing like an old bachelor. I have had quite a good crop,” he lied, “and next year’s is sure to be even better!”

“We’re very sorry, Mister Bilbo,” Fidrin said. She visibly squared herself up before speaking and then said, in a rush, “It was not only the, the red ones. We ate some of the others as well. Kudrin was hungry.” Shame passed over her face. “So was I. When we are back with _Amad _she will pay the debt, I swear on my honour.”

“Now, that is enough going-ons about debts, or I will be getting angry,” Bilbo said mildly, plucking two mostly-ripe apples from the orchard to toss over to Fidrin, who automatically put one in Kudrin’s outstretched hands. Fidrin looked uncertain.

“The fruit isn’t for decoration, Fidrin. You were hungry and it was there to be eaten. To be sure, I would have preferred that you had knocked on my door instead of knocking off the tomato vines, but since I wasn’t at home, we may share the blame half and half on that.”

Fidrin laughed at this, but spoke with real feeling as she gave another of her neat little bows, “Thank you very much, Mister Bilbo.” She was much more relaxed after that and even let her guard down enough to speak a little about her family, which did not help Bilbo’s search like he had hoped, but seemed to make her feel better so it was not a waste anyway. 


End file.
